


Something Slightly Other

by The Rose Mistress (Semilune)



Series: "The Bastard and the Hound," or Things Estinien is Terrified Krile Saw via Echo [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Adorable, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Kissing, Awkwardness, BOYS IN LOVE BUT SO AFRAID, Bisexuality, Bromance, Bromance to Romance, Cute, Demisexuality, Epic Bromance, Epic Friendship, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Humor, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Male Slash, Mildly Sexy, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, SO AFRAID TO LOVE EACH OTHER, Sharing a Bed, Slash, a little bit of making out, because Estinien is himself, commitment issues, or so I assume for Ishgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 07:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semilune/pseuds/The%20Rose%20Mistress
Summary: ☾ ✧ ☽Yes, Estinien Wyrmblood wished for love with force enough to melt him; heat enough to burn him full to ashes.  Time after time on his lonesome, he almost howled it to the moon; thought during moments of silence of climbing very rooftops to shout into the cold void:  Where in the bloody hells are you?You, in the sense of the notion.  You, in the figurative principle.  You, in the fashion of something slightly other than Aymeric.  Try as he might to deny that, too, Estinien knew he had some measure of the answer lying on the mattress behind him.  But even with Aymeric, he felt lost and tragic.Probably, he reasoned, because Aymeric felt the same.☾ ❅ ☽





	Something Slightly Other

**Author's Note:**

> Another mini oneshot!
> 
> Estinien POV, more of the summer they realized they were not just merely friends.  
Aka, more of the historical Estinien/Aymeric pining that is currently giving me life.

* * *

☾ ❅ ☽

Estinien used his bare fingers to snuff out the candle, and sighed.

Sleep was evading him, far worse than usual. 

He blamed Aymeric. And why should he not? It was _his fault._ Aymeric asked him to come to the _manor_ tonight. Aymeric asked him to _accompany him_ to that damn bloody _ball._ Estinien snorted loudly as he opened the door and stepped out into the hall, thinking back on the evening.

* * *

“My valued comrade, Ser Estinien Wyrmblood,” Aymeric provided, smiling brightly at the highborns that flounced up for introduction. This time it was an older lord and lady, dressed head to toe in a sickening display of finery. Estinien could tell they were charmed by his handsome companion; plainly observed the way they faltered, visibly enraptured by the force of Aymeric’s attention. Of late, Aymeric began honing that talent—cowing people with the power of his focus—sharpening his raw charisma in the same way one might whet an heirloom blade. “Ser Alberic serves as his mentor,” Aymeric continued, eyes sparkling, hypnotic and enchanting.

“Oh, my dear boy,” said the lady. Her tall veiled hat bounced as she craned her neck to look up at Estinien. Why in hells did these peacocks persist in calling him a _boy_ when he was well past _three and twenty?_ “And do you plan to follow in the footsteps of Ser Alberic?” She clasped her hands together in simpering delight. “Do I speak with the future boldest defender of Ishgard?”

Estinien tried not to frown; tried to school his face into something stony and impassive. He possessed none of the animal magnetism of his friend. “My ambitions are mine own to decide—”

“He serves at my side with our fellow Temple Knights,” supplied Aymeric, interceding, glittering to distract her. “Azure Dragoon or not, I daresay he will collect his share of accolades regardless.”

Someone bustled up to join them. It was a younger maiden who, to Estinien’s insight, appeared to be about his age. Hair of a color like bronze and champagne was swept back in a herringbone braid. She blinked several times to behold them—particularly Aymeric—and turned her fair grey eyes to the older lady. “Mother, would you introduce me to your new friends?”

“Esme,” trilled the woman, beaming fondly at her child. “Why, you remember Ser Aymeric de Borel, son of House Borel—and this is his comrade, Ser Estinien Wyrmblood.” The lady smiled between them and eagerly presented her wide-eyed offspring. Estinien was struck by the thought of a ritual sacrifice, an offering prepped for the altar. “Mademoiselle Esme de Amboise,” the lady was saying, “My darling daughter and the sweetest girl in Ishgard, though I do say it myself.”

The maiden blushed gracefully and, Estinien had to admit, it suited her very nicely. Upon this closer inspection, she was what some might refer to as _extraordinarily easy on the eyes._ “Goodness, Mother,” she demurred, dark, brassy lashes lowered shyly. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sers.” Eyes like sunlit storm clouds darted back up to take them in—first Estinien, and then Aymeric, again. Her stare was uncomfortably shrewd and calculating, and though her voice was meant to convey something bashful, Estinien had a very distinct impression that she was far from _timid_. He examined her a bit more carefully.

Aymeric was bowing in impressive genuflection. “The pleasure is ours,” he announced. As he rose, cool eyes carefully guarded, Estinien nonetheless captured a thin glimmer of interest there.

It was mirrored, crystal clear, in the grey eyes that, more and more _hungrily_, beheld him.

Estinien bit his own tongue at the urge to laugh out loud.

_Here we go again._

* * *

The family wing was some trek away past the staircase.

Estinien was undeterred by the prospect. He stepped out into the darkness with bored determination. No few times had he traversed it, in his efforts to fetch this and that for Madame Melisandre, or visit Aymeric for one self-centered purpose or another. Now, out of fear of waking the former, he was heart-poundingly careful to keep his feet light and silent as he prowled, calling upon every moon of his military training.

It would not do if she found them together. He shuddered, quite literally, at the thought. But much though he loathed to admit it, he slept somehow _better_ with Aymeric by his side—felt safer and warmer and soothed in the mind. Ever since the first instance he tried it, creeping to his chambers in the pitch of the night, he reluctantly wished he could do it every time.

He came upon the frame of a door, unassumingly gilded and polished. It was inlaid with twining vines of ivy, something to do with the Borel family crest. Estinien let his eyes linger on the three-pronged leaves as his heart gave a flutter; tried to quell the uncomfortable flurry in his chest as he tested the knob. The handle gave way beneath the pressure of his fingers.

Aymeric’s bedchamber was dark. He was doubtless asleep, and Estinien was rude to interrupt. But Estinien wanted what he wanted, and regrets were, ever and always, a waste of his valuable time. 

He closed the door soundlessly behind him and trekked across the boudoir.

A hoarse voice pierced the silence at once. “Did you get lost on your way to the larder?”

Estinien could feel himself smiling through his scowl, eyes adjusting to the dimness as he crept up to the edge of the mattress. “After a fashion,” he said, keeping his voice very low.

Aymeric looked exhausted. The coverlet was pulled all the way up to his chin, his thick, dark hair all tousled and disheveled. He sighed and pushed the bedspread down so that Estinien could crawl in, revealing a set of fleecy white nightclothes. In a reaction that was becoming perhaps too familiar, Aymeric rolled to the side, letting Estinien slide over.

For a moment, they lay there, adjacent in silence. “You really must find a better cure for your insomnia,” Aymeric muttered dryly, voice still bleary with sleep. He yawned audibly.

Estinien scoffed at the canopy before propping himself up to face him. “You say that as though I have not thought it many times.”

Aymeric’s eyes were closed, his mouth snagged in a grin. “I was having a wonderful vision when you woke me.” A gentle complaint. “In seeking your remedy, you pass me your affliction.”

“Oh?” Estinien studied him more cruelly. “Pray tell me of this _vision_.”

Aymeric smiled fully, showing teeth. He rocked with an intake of breath that rasped and warbled, taking the shape of a laugh. “No,” he said weakly. “I think I dare not.”

Surely Aymeric knew that such a maddening comment would pique him. “Now you must tell me,” Estinien grumbled, leaning nearer.

Aymeric’s eyes slitted open very slightly and he grimaced in response to the person scowling down at him. Estinien supposed he _was_ buttressed above him perhaps a little _too closely_—but alas, he did not care to move. Aymeric pursed his lips and tilted his face to avoid the long wisps of silver-white hair stretching down to tickle him. “’Twas a wedding,” he provided, writhing gently away on the mattress. “Mine own, to the elusive next Vicomtesse de Borel.”

_Ah. _

How _fitting_, after the _excitement _of tonight, that he would dream of that dearest Ishgardian wish.

Estinien thought of it—Aymeric getting _married_—and a surge of something strange and ashen clawed its way up his spine. He tried to tease apart the facets. Estinien had always been rather twisted and tangled, lost inside himself. Much of him persisted in knots, many of which were beyond his capacity to unravel or take measure. But surely Aymeric dreamed after meeting that fair maiden. Surely, he felt stirred by the hope of finding _what he wanted_. And indeed, Estinien knew how keenly Aymeric wished to abide by some ration of tradition; to take up the name of his parents, at least, and carry on the pride of his House. 

As much as Estinien felt some bizarre allure to Aymeric himself—and stiffened at the thought of anyone coming _between them_—that was not what distressed him. For who, in the end, had the power to do _that?_ Certainly not some pert highborn lass. No; she, or the notion of _any other_, was not what rightly disturbed him. Instead, it was the rite of imagining wedlock at all, of starting a _family_, of becoming the _head of a household—_

That was what made Estinien cringe and want to _flee_.

He, Estinien Wyrmblood, would never risk such a damned thing. Not for the sake of anyone. He would never dare to _think_ of finding home and hearth all over again, only to assuredly lose it. _Never. _He would seek his fleeting reliefs where they happened to present themselves, _bewildering though they may be,_ and move his jolly way on. 

There was a long, dead beat of silence as he thought on all this.

For a moment after, he fought to find words. 

“And this was a _wonderful_ dream, you called it?”

Aymeric sighed insipidly. “I knew you would not like it.”

“No—that is not—” Estinien huffed and flattened himself back on the pillows again. “’Twould make your _Maman_ very happy, if you were to find her a bride,” he said, gruffly and honestly. Few people held claim on Estinien’s true affection, but much like Alberic Bale, Melisandre de Borel was one of them.

“’Tis not my mother that drives my desires,” said Aymeric, and Estinien was completely unpersuaded. Solemn though she tended to be, as far as Aymeric was concerned, the Vicomtesse had an iron will and a tongue of steel to match it. In the eyes of her son, she was a veritable force of nature. But Estinien had no chance to speak on that matter, because Aymeric was sighing loudly. “You know I yet wish for a woman to love me,” he grumbled, and that, Estinien knew to be fact. Aymeric sounded full wistful and pensive, doubtless gone all moony-eyed. 

Estinien huffed another breath, this time of vivid distaste. He tried to hold in his comment, but alas, he could not. “Fat chance finding that among those highborn clotheshorses,” he mumbled. “Fat chance finding that in _Ishgard_—among your fair ladies or people, besides.” 

He chuckled bitterly as an afterthought. 

_Love_, as it was inclined to be garnered, was not a concept Estinien particularly _believed in._

Aymeric knew this. And yet, even _knowing_, he made the dumb bleeding comment regardless. “You only speak of love so tartly because you feel it so keenly, Estinien,” he muttered. The words drifted up like phantoms in the darkness and seemed to settle between them like cobwebs.

“Wishful thinking,” Estinien argued sharply, closing his eyes.

“Not in the slightest,” came the answer, unrelenting. “You love with every ilm of your heart and your body,” Aymeric continued, unerringly insightful. “You love perhaps more strongly than _I.”_

Said _strongly loving heart_ lurched with a mixture of outrage and basic adoration, clawing at the cage of Estinien’s chest. “I do _not_,” he grunted, even while knowing it was baldly a lie. His face crinkled with adamance to spite it. 

“You do,” said Aymeric smugly. “One day I aim to prove it and catch you in the throes of your mendacity.”

Estinien scoffed and snorted and crossed his arms and hunched to put his back to his well-and-truly beloved companion—caught in his falsehoods already. “Fat chance of that,” he spat, shoving his arms aggressively beneath a pillow. “You can keep your holy hallowed _heartsblood_ to yourself. In my life, such a thing has only ever begotten pain.”

“I know you dream of it all the same,” said Aymeric, one final piercing blow. Disturbingly discerning, cutting him right to the core of his marrow. “And I pray that if a spark of love should find you, your pride will be swallowed, and you will allow it at once to catch completely ablaze.”

Estinien’s breath was coming faster at the words, his gentle friend’s _barbarity_—at the absolute _veracity_ of his claim. Aymeric was _right_ and he could not deny it. He _had_ dreamt of love—dreamt _savagely _of finding it, a love he could never escape. He wanted a love so _compelling_ that, try as he might to abscond in the night, it always, somehow, _chased him back down._

Yes, Estinien Wyrmblood wished for love with force enough to melt him; heat enough to burn him full to ashes. Time after time on his lonesome, he almost howled it to the moon; thought during moments of silence of climbing very rooftops to shout into the cold void:

_Where in the bloody hells are you?_

_You_, in the sense of the _notion_. _You_, in the figurative _principle_. _You_, in the fashion of something slightly other than _Aymeric_. Try as he might to deny that, too, Estinien knew he had some measure of the answer lying on the mattress behind him. But even with Aymeric, he felt lost and tragic.

Probably, he reasoned, because Aymeric felt the same.

A shuffling of the bedclothes. Sleepy azure scent, _de Borel_, stirred around them—clean laundry and candles and always the faintest whiff of tea—and a heavy, resigned sigh sounded in the darkness. Estinien felt a warm hand on his shoulder. 

“Estinien, I—”

Estinien rolled over at once to face him. “No apologies,” he grunted, and hoped that even in the dimness, Aymeric could read the truth in his eyes: _You are right._

The two of them took slow, steady breaths and stared at each other, propped against the pillows.

“Forgive me,” Aymeric said irrespective, and Estinien was scowling, about to admonish him— “But love, by some increasingly potent measure, is very much what I feel now for _you.”_

The words fell like weighted stones between them, but—

Was there ever more apt of a time?

Estinien’s heart skipped enough beats to lose count and he felt fire and ice in his blood all at once. “I feel the same,” he grumbled, reluctant. “And yet I know we both ache for something else.”

Somehow in the night-dark room, Estinien could see the light of his eyes. Aymeric’s gaze trailed his face in stern and solemn contemplation. “That we do—but could we find a cure for that between us?”

“Likely no better than the _cure for my insomnia,”_ Estinien quipped, sardonic.

“Likely every bit just as fleeting,” Aymeric agreed.

Still, they shifted closer together.

Aymeric stilled to watch in anticipation as Estinien lifted a hand. 

His fingers were becoming more scarred now from mishaps with the lance—from all his ill begotten ventures hunting and scrabbling. Still, he used one set of them to comb back Aymeric’s hair; to feel the feather-soft blackness on his skin. He stroked his thumb along Aymeric’s neck and down to the warm, flannel-lined ledge of his collarbone. Along the stretch of his palm, Estinien could feel a fast heartbeat, pulsing in staccato.

A heart that was racing, in this moment, for _him_.

“Demented,” Estinien muttered, dropping his hand back to the bed.

Aymeric’s face twisted with something between a grin and a frown. “Beg pardon?”

“Demented,” Estinien said again, lip curling in a grimace. “How damned handsome you are.”

That made Aymeric cough out a wry laugh. “Do you mean that in flattery or insult?”

“Neither,” he muttered. He pressed their foreheads together and closed his eyes.

Between them spread that plea again for something—_anything_ to ease them both of their painful _aloneness_. They paused for a very long handful of heartbeats in tandem, simply enjoying the easy contact. Rare, for Estinien to feel so tranquil. But it was as effortless as breathing, to be this close to Aymeric. “Why, then,” Estinien breathed aloud. “Why, if it feels good and _right_—”

“Does satisfaction evade us?” Estinien could feel Aymeric smile. “A plain enough answer.”

Estinien snorted and drew back an ilm to stare at him. “Pray tell.”

“There is an old adage, I believe,” began Aymeric blandly. “Opposites attract, but—”

“Similarities serve to tie us,” Estinien finished, his voice a growl.

“Indeed.” One word, unadorned, as Aymeric quirked a brow. 

Estinien slumped back further to search him, more baffled than before. “Do you mean to say that we are too—_opposing?”_

“Merely conjecture.” Aymeric shivered and pulled the bedclothes back up to his chin. “For a parallel, the two of us are stubborn.” His eyes twinkled. “Mayhap the answer is as simple as the fact that we refuse to be sated _together_ whilst we yet dream of something more.”

That felt like a challenge to Estinien, and he snorted. “_Could_ we be sated together?”

Aymeric shrugged. “Are we disposed to make an effort on that front?”

Questionable. It was dangerous enough, to care for Aymeric like this. Dangerous enough, to put his heart on the line. But then again, his heart was already on the line. For a matter of fact, his heart seemed very far _gone _from the line—caught between the teeth of Aymeric himself.

Estinien shivered.

He tried not to think. Tried not to fear. 

When Estinien spoke, his voice was very timid. “Touch me.”

From above the fringe of his blankets, Aymeric blinked at him. “Verily?”

Estinien swallowed hard and nodded.

There was a gentle rustling as the sheets were pushed down again; as Aymeric scooted closer to him on the mattress. “Again, you must let me know at once if anything feels—”

“Wrong,” Estinien muttered. He stared into Aymeric’s eyes like a wild dog searching for a master.

Aymeric took a breath. Then he gently, nervously took Estinien’s face in both of his hands. The way they were gazing at each other was so damned _serious._ At once, they both started grinning and muffling their laughter. “We are truly abysmal at this,” Aymeric observed.

Estinien smiled so widely his face hurt, and something _beautiful_ crashed behind Aymeric’s eyes—a nebula of stardust, a comet arcing across the horizon—

“By Halone, Estinien,” Aymeric breathed. “Your smile renders you blessed.”

Estinien’s heart felt like it was cracking open. He crushed their foreheads together again and crushed their lips together besides, and then they were both gasping for breath, tangled in a new and terrifying kind of kiss. He was sure they both tasted the same—lost and lonely and _aching—_and in that, there was something quite sad and quite binding.

Aymeric broke away to pant for breath. “This frightens me,” he confessed.

“Me too,” said Estinien.

They twined back together again.

Aymeric stroked his hands through Estinien’s hair and raked his fingertips softly down his scalp.

Estinien threw back his chin and stifled a cry. His own breath felt hot on his lips as he tried to catch his air; as he wanted to do so much more than just _kiss him_. He was overcome with the tension of _longing_; the feeling that made his body want to flex and bend and plummet and _rut._

But how could he let himself do that? How could he let himself do that with _him?_

Estinien took a ragged breath. “We must stop,” he said, the words coming fast, raw and hollow in his throat. “We must stop before we regret this.”

_Before I regret this._

Aymeric’s brow was knitted, his lips parted to vent his own awakened desires, but he backed away at once in agreement. “’Twould be reckless to continue,” he said, hitched and very halted.

Seven _hells,_ his heart was pounding, tangles of his own silver hair veiling his eyes. He pushed them out of the way as he tried to disentangle himself, clinging to the last threadbare tatters of his self-control. “I apologize,” he muttered, voice dry and ragged and husky.

“No apologies,” said Aymeric firmly.

They slipped farther apart.

There was a moment of silence while they both tried to catch their breath. The darkness seemed to settle more deeply around them as they rolled onto their backs, staring at the canopy together.

“I suppose I overestimated myself,” Estinien grumbled, surprised to hear himself speak.

There was a slight pause. 

Then there was the unmistakable sound of Aymeric swallowing a chuckle. “When do you not?”

Estinien hit him with a pillow.

“Shut it, Borel.”

☾ ❅ ☽

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave a comment if you liked anything in particular, have suggestions, or any kind of feedback whatsoever! I'm super friendly and I love responding. It's the comments that truly keep me inspired <3


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